Surface engineered Polyaniline (PANI) loaded Ti1-xSbxO2 nanocubes for efficient room temperature detection of benzene vapor Nirman Chakraborty a , Sagnik Das a , Akbar Hossain b , Debdulal Saha a and Swastik Mondal a a CSIR Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute, India, b Department of Chemistry, Jadavpur University, India Email: nirmanchakraborty910@gmail.com Benzene is one of the sweet smelling yet toxic organic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) which pose serious threats to human health by causing leukemia [1]. Particularly for workers in petroleum and polymer industries, exposure to low ppm benzene has been reported to cause both short term as well as long time health disorders [2]. Hence, efficient detection of low ppm benzene vapor at room temperature with high selectivity against Xylene and Toluene (members of the BTX group which share nearly same molecular structure like benzene) is definitely the need of the hour. In this work, using the idea that conversion from spherical to cubical morphology triggers the issue of mutual repulsion between alkyl groups of the members of Benzene, Toluene and Xylene (BTX) group, Sb doped TiO 2 nanocubes in rutile phase were synthesized by cost-effective soft-chemical routes [3] and employed in benzene detection. The base resistance of the sensor material was brought down using in-situ polymerization of aniline into poly-aniline and the composite materials was employed in room temperature benzene detection employing chemiresistive methods. The composition TiA_0.05 showed an excellent response of ~80% towards 2 ppm benzene vapor at room temperature with 7 times greater selectivity than xylene and toluene. The improved sensing performance and selectivity were explained using concepts of increased BET surface area by virtue of Sb doping and transformation of morphology from nanosphere to nanocube. The metal oxide-polymer composite material stands as potential candidate for room temperature benzene sensor. A comprehensive study employing spherical and cubical morphologies of the above sample was performed to highlight the beneficial effect of surface engineering. References 1. Q. Qu, R. Shore, G. Li, X. Jin, LC. Chen, B. Cohen, AA. Melikian, D. Eastmond, SM. Rappaport, S. Yin, H. Li, S. Waidyanatha, Y. Li, R. Mu, X. Zhang, K. Li, Am. J. Ind. Med. 42 (2002) 275–285. 2. A. Robert Schnatter, P. J. Kerzic, Y. Zhou, M. Chen, M. J. Nicolich, K. Lavellea, T. W. Armstrong, M. G. Bird, L. Lin, H. Fu, R. D. Irons, Chemico-Biological Interactions 184 (2010) 174–181. 3. N. Chakraborty, S. Das, A. Hossain, D. Saha, S. Mondal, Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical 347 (2021) 130622.
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